Life and Times of Michael K: Analysis of Major Characters
"Life and Times of Michael K" is a novel by J.M. Coetzee that explores the life of its titular character, Michael K, a thirty-one-year-old black man in South Africa who faces profound social and personal challenges. Michael's journey reflects themes of isolation and the struggle for identity in a society marked by conflict and displacement. Raised in an institution for abandoned children, he finds himself homeless and propertyless, navigating a war-torn landscape in search of sanctuary.
Key characters include Michael's mother, Anna K, whose wish to return to her birthplace is thwarted by their circumstances and leads to her tragic death. Other significant characters include Visagie’s grandson, who attempts to manipulate Michael into servitude, and Robert, an internee who introduces Michael to the harsh realities of life in a relocation camp. Additionally, figures like the sympathetic doctor and the guard at Jakkelsdrif provide contrasting perspectives on Michael's plight, highlighting the complexities of human interaction in oppressive circumstances.
Through these characters, the novel delves into issues of survival, compassion, and the human desire for freedom, presenting a poignant commentary on the struggles faced by individuals marginalized by society.
Life and Times of Michael K: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: J. M. Coetzee
First published: 1983
Genre: Novel
Locale: Cape Town, South Africa, and the adjacent countryside
Plot: Allegory
Time: The 1980's
Michael K, a thirty-one-year-old black South African, homeless, propertyless, deformed by a harelip curled like a snail's foot, and slow of mind. Brought up at Huis Norenius, a school for poor and abandoned children, Michael K lives a life of solitude and isolation, working as a gardener for the city of Cape Town and eventually taking to the war-ravaged countryside in a continuous and unsuccessful effort to find a sanctuary. A gardener at an abandoned farmhouse in the country, a wanderer in the mountains, a prisoner in relocation or rehabilitation camps, and finally an ailing migrant along the roads and the seashore, Michael K has no money, no papers, no friends, no family, and no place, even among the armies of the homeless and the destitute. Having lived a life in cages, he wishes only to be left alone to plant the pumpkin seeds he carries in a small packet—his sole possession.
Anna K, Michael's mother, formerly a domestic for a retired hosiery manufacturer and his wife living at Sea Point on the Atlantic Ocean. A dying, dropsical woman, Anna K suffers from gross swelling of the arms, legs, and belly. She wishes to leave Cape Town and return to her birthplace at Prince Albert, a considerable distance away, but her son is unable to get the necessary passes or railway tickets from the authorities. They set out together, Michael pushing his mother in a rudely converted wheelbarrow, but she dies en route, at the hospital in Stellenbosch.
Visagie's grandson, a pale, plump army deserter. Finding Michael K at his grandfather's run-down and abandoned farm, Visagie's grandson assumes that Michael K had been hired to watch over the place. Anemic and weakhearted, the grandson wishes to live hidden away at the farm until the war's end, and he attempts to transform Michael into a body-servant. The grandson is soon abandoned by Michael K, who, sent on a shopping mission into Prince Albert, buries in a tin can the forty rand in notes given to him for the purpose and wanders away.
Robert, an internee of the Jakkelsdrif Relocation Camp, where Michael K is taken after he is arrested by the police. A man with a large family, Robert befriends the malnourished and ailing Michael, teaching him the ways of the camps and how to survive the long day-trips to the railways or surrounding farms, where the male internees are taken to work for subsistence wages.
The guard, who is stationed at the Jakkelsdrif Relocation Camp. A diabetic white soldier who would desert if given the chance, the guard makes it clear that he would shoot Michael K should he try to escape the camp. Over time, the guard begins to show Michael K some kindness, passing food to him through the wire mesh of the camp fence. After three intern-ees go missing the night of a huge fire in neighboring Prince Albert, the guard himself is interned for incompetence and is later stabbed in a fight.
Captain Oosthuizen, a member of the Prince Albert Police Department who recognizes and arrests Michael K after he escapes from Jakkelsdrif, calling him, mistakenly, Michaels.
The doctor, a sympathetic white medical officer at the Kenilworth rehabilitation camp, the narrator of one major section of the novel. The doctor is fascinated and frustrated by Michael, who seems to have no sense of self, no needs, no desires, and no interest in becoming healthy. When the police wish to interrogate Michael K about his encounters with black guerrilla fighters, the doctor intercedes, claiming that Michael K is in no condition to undergo such harsh treatment, let alone make the arduous journey to the site of the interrogation. The doctor genuinely wants to know Michael's story, but he has no way of penetrating to the truth and will never know it.
Noel, the chief medical officer at Kenilworth, a sixty-year-old man under orders to release prisoners from the infirmary when they are well enough to return to the camp's regimen of hard labor. A decent, soft man, like the doctor he takes an interest in Michael K and allows him to stay on in the infirmary.
Felicity, a nurse at Kenilworth.
December, a robust and cheerful vagabond who befriends Michael K at Sea Point, where Michael goes after he escapes from Kenilworth. Declaring that “tomorrow you will be a new man,” December gives Michael K food, shelter, and his sister in a generous effort to provide the obviously dying Michael perhaps his only moment of sexual pleasure.